School administrators admit to using curriculum service Newsela to bypass CRT bans
Jeremiah Poff
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EXCLUSIVE — A conservative journalism organization that uses undercover tactics has recorded a number of public school administrators around the country admitting to using a curriculum service called Newsela to bypass state bans on critical race theory.
In a video shared with the Washington Examiner, the organization Accuracy in Media says it filmed several administrators at various school districts saying that they were using Newsela to incorporate certain ideas and concepts from critical race theory.
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The Accuracy in Media investigations primarily focused on how school administrators were navigating critical race theory bans in a broader sense. Numerous states, including Florida, Texas, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Idaho, have all banned the teaching of the theory’s concepts in public schools. The theory, which originated in law schools, says U.S. institutions and culture are systemically racist and oppressive to racial minorities.
Adam Guillette, the president of Accuracy in Media, told the Washington Examiner in an interview that a common thread began to emerge as his organization continued its undercover investigations: School administrators repeatedly mentioned Newsela as a way for teachers to incorporate certain ideas linked to critical race theory into the classroom.
“What we’ve learned firsthand from administrators around the country is that if they’re in a state where they’re not allowed to teach the 1619 Project, they simply get the Newsela version of it … and parents are none the wiser,” Guillette said.
Guillette called Newsela a “Trojan horse to advance the radical principles associated with critical race theory” and pointed to partnerships between the company and several groups that have supported critical race theory, including the Southern Poverty Law Center and the New York Times, which published the 1619 Project, which argued that the true founding of the United States occurred in 1619 when the first ships carrying African slaves arrived in North America.
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According to its website, Newsela “takes authentic, real world content from trusted sources,” primarily news articles and other written materials, and makes the material digestible for students of varying reading levels. The company says it adapts texts to five different reading levels “so content can be both challenging to and supportive of every learner.” On its website, it boasts that more than 40 million students have registered for the company’s materials.
“Teachers love that Newsela helps them create more engaging lessons that meet students where they are, and administrators love having the assurance that every content choice teachers make is vetted, aligned to standards, and contributing to learning,” the company says.
In one clip from the Accuracy in Media videos, an administrator from an Indiana school district acknowledged Newsela had partnered with the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Howard Zinn Education Project and said that “our teachers know that but they’re not saying that out loud.” Another administrator from an Iowa district said using Newsela was “one” way to incorporate critical race theory without being discovered.
Newsela lists a number of partners on its website that provide the company with texts that it adapts to different reading levels. The company’s publicly listed partners include news outlets such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Associated Press, and the Guardian, but also organizations such as Human Rights Watch, the Smithsonian Institution, the Council for Economic Education, the White House Historical Association, and Voices of a People’s History.
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The Southern Poverty Law Center is not currently listed on the company’s partner list, but a 2021 blog post from Newsela said that the center’s Teaching Tolerance initiative was a company partner and had been involved with creating anti-bias and anti-racism lessons for the company. Teaching Tolerance has since been renamed to Learning for Justice. The company had also touted the 1619 Project on X, the social media outlet formerly known as Twitter, in a post from 2020.
https://twitter.com/Newsela/status/1295759619768430592?s=20
Newsela did not respond to a request for comment from the Washington Examiner that asked if the Southern Poverty Law Center was a current partner. The company also did not respond to a question asking if it provided materials such as the 1619 Project to school districts in states that have banned critical race theory.